House building targets scrapped.

[socialmedia23]

www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/05/sunak-backs-down-on-housebuilding-targets-after-pressure-from-tory-mps

I am surprised there isn't a thread on this already on a parenting forum because this really does threaten British preferences and social norms. Most british people want to live in a house with garden. I was just on a thread where a poster was trying to decide whether she should downsize from a house to a flat in her preferred location and the prevailing consensus was that flats were no good for babies, should have a house with garden where the children can play in etc etc. This isn't the norm in many countries in the world, but it appear to be the norm in the UK outside London. However, what this norm depends on is LAND. in cities where there is generally less opposition to building, they tend to build flats due to the high cost of land.

The reason why so many British people live in houses today is because there was a house building boom in the 1930s and then the 1950s where they built lots of houses. Including ex council houses with gardens in the 1950s. I own a 1930s flat and when i read local history, it was literally opposite an actual farm. So while it is suburban london today, it was considered quite a rural area when it was built and completely different in character; today I am a 2 minute walk to a dry cleaners, a bakery, a small local supermarket/deli, a breakfast place and a 15 minute walk from a tube station that takes me to central london within 20 minutes.

So scrapping house building targets would mean that the future houses for the young Britons of today would not get built while the population is increasing. As every area would be able to object to housebuilding if it 'has an impact on the local character'. If this was the case in the 1930s, my flat would never have been built. And perhaps I wouldn't have been able to afford to stay in London as the only properties available would be Victorian workers cottages, flats above shops and grand mansions.

I think that this does not bode well for young people. As my friend said, if he did not have the means to buy property, he would definitely leave the UK. This could potentially engineer a London style housing crisis even in affordable regions of the UK. Never mind about houses for young families, I think 50% of the population would be struggling to rent. I read a stat that 25% of renters are either returning to the family home or would do so within the next year. This is the situation in 2022; how much worse would it be in 10 years time?

And no increasing mortgage rates would not help with this. You need the supply.

There's a lot more to it than merely space. Our village has an absurd planning application in for 350 houses. Unfortunately the sewage farm is so overflowing that they have to tanker away waste every night now. The main road in is a single track bridge over a river that floods, no primary or secondary school, no pub, no church, no supermarket, no employment and creaking broadband. We aren't on a gas main or a railway line.

Unsurprisingly, the locals don't want the new houses. We already have raw sewage in the river and no school places or doctor/dentists.

I think you are wrong - the point is you should be able to purchase a home on two wages x3 salary and you are very accepting of the housing market rates - foreign investors have increased the demand and sent prices soaring, some blocks aren’t even lived in and sit there as an investment.

Homes are what’s needed for your average family at an average price.

When I was young houses where £8,000 3 times the average salary, the property boom meant houses increased four fold.

£400,000 for a flat isn’t good value for money or easily affordable - they should be less that x3 of an average persons salary.

You are being ripped off and you have no idea!

My children probably won’t be able to afford to live near us in future - they should be able to find a decent home at a decent price and not have to work all hours to afford to live in a shoe box.

Nightmare. What's their excuse, who do they claim to be housing? Is it claiming to be like "support" for the nearest town?

And in the past in the early 1900s, the average middle class family in the UK would have had servants. They would have sent their children to private school. I would probably count as middle class but do not have servants today in 2022.

What is the point of looking at the past lives of your forebears? UK used to be an empire. i am not supporting colonialism but in the past, it was considered a world power (pre WW2). Today, the average polish family's quality of life would surpass that of a British family by the late 2020s. www.ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68945

There is zero point in looking at what things were like when you were young. Did average families also go on foreign holidays on a yearly basis when you were young? Did they also have the amount of toys children have today or the appliances? Life is completely different today, we just have to move with the times, rather than look pensively at what used to be. Nothing is static. Yes you could buy a house on 3x your income when you were young but what kind of country was the UK in relation to the other countries in the world. Look at the other countries in the world- how many countries are there where people buy a house at 3 X average salary. Actually in my home country, people do buy a flat at 4 X average salary and they don't even need to save a deposit in many cases (as this can be taken from the compulsory savings scheme). Still it is not a house.

I cannot think of another developed country where it is normal to buy a house a 3 X average income. Particularly not an Anglo one. Australia, Canada, New Zealand all have their own housing crisis. As does the USA. The housing problem is global. I actually think uk has comparatively affordable housing prices. I can afford a flat in London, but cannot afford a flat in Vancouver, New York, San Francisco, Melbourne, Tel Aviv, Munich, Geneva or Hong Kong.

to be fair this is 3X our combined wages. Its just that the combined commuting costs would make this more expensive than a flat in London (which is also near our family). And I would rather pay a higher mortgage than higher commuting costs and actually have to do the commute!

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/123397907#/?channel=RES_BUY

It goes beyond that @yoyy. Housing for the elderly is an issue but no one is correlating the standard of housing and mental health issues. Children especially need to grow up in a low stress environment. A proper home which is affordable contributes to that much more than anyone talks about.

The other group whose needs are not met are large families. I’ve always thought it would be great to have terrace style housing that can expand/contract based on the size of the household and their needs. I tried to build something like this as a rental property and the planners heads exploded. I still think it’s a great idea and I the reaction of the planners told me what the agenda is.

@socialmedia23

You would be shocked that it’s actually pretty normal in most parts of the US that it’s 3x income. In HCOL areas it fluxes based on the property taxes, which are often in the $30-100k range.

The commercial real estate sector is in a tight spot and it’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out. If values drop I expect there will be pressure to allow those buildings to convert to residential housing.

bad decision - we should be embarking on a programme of mass energy efficient house building. The technology exists. There is plenty of available space. It will create jobs and help to regenerate the physical landscape and improve the economy.

inward infrastructure investment - it’s exactly what the country needs right now

As someone who is 30 and probably closer to your children's ages, please don't tell them that. They were born through no fault of their own in a country which practices socialism for the elderly and rugged individualism for the young. And this is likely to continue as the older population vote (and younger people often don't).

They will not be able to buy their homes at an affordable price (relative to income) because there is no appetite for affordable housing. Why should they build affordable housing when 1 in 4 home owners use equity release to help their children buy property. This is why income is often secondary when it comes to buying property; while the income multiples are scary, at least 30% of my generation get help from family which means lower mortgages despite the high house prices... I know 3 people personally who bought their properties in London in cash (gift from parents) and they were my age! They were also British. There is plenty of money swimming around, hence why the income multiples do not matter for many. This is something your generation didn't have- rich parents..

The only way they can get affordable housing is if they have a lot of savings (due to your help) and there is a house price crash. If they don't have rich parents, then they just have to suck up the income multiples or pay rent because there is no alternative.

What’s wrong with non-British nationals giving opinions? It can expand the horizons of debate to hear from people who can give more of an outsiders’ perspective.

I am British but live overseas permanently (am I allowed to give an opinion?) I think the OP is correct that British people’s love of detached houses and gardens is an issue. I have raised two kids in a flat in a dense urban area, FWIW, it’s perfectly possible. Condo style ownership arrangements mean that people can buy flats, not just rent them.

I think the problem with the UK is that people love houses, gardens and using the car to get everywhere, BUT also want pretty streetscapes full of old buildings, AND have a relatively dense population AND don’t want to build on green belt. You can’t have all of these things, people.

I think the problem with the UK is that people love houses, gardens and using the car to get everywhere, BUT also want pretty streetscapes full of old buildings, AND have a relatively dense population AND don’t want to build on green belt. You can’t have all of these things, people.

I think you’ll find that many would rather ditch the dense population than the fields. 😂

Govt needs to have a national house/flat building program (like Keir starter’s green energy company) - developers plan for short term profit, but houses/flats need to be planned for long-term use and live-ability common gardens/playgrounds, common bbq areas, sufficient parking and electric car charge points.

But it's quite hard to reduce population density. People living longer and also immigration. I came back to the UK under Theresa May's restrictive immigration policy. Every Tory government has pledged to cut immigration to tens of thousands. None have succeeded. Not even leaving the EU can achieve that, in fact leaving the EU has increased overall immigration. I doubt even Farage as PM can achieve that though doubtless he would make the lives of asylum seekers hell.

It's because our businesses (and the NHS) need immigrants. English is a very commonly spoken second language and is relatively easy to master. The UK has lots of cheap flights to many parts of the world, which allows people to stay connected with family. We are also a multicultural and diverse country which makes it easier for newcomers to integrate. The fact that 1 in 5 working age people in the UK are economically inactive also does not help. The rise in long term sickness preventing people from working also doesn't help. Immigrants tend to be younger and healthier as sick people generally don't tend to move country.

The Brexit vote was a vote against immigration for many people and you can see how counterproductive that was. I think it's better to accept the reality that we are a growing population and plan for it accordingly.

I don’t disagree with you.

I just don’t think you’ll have much luck convincing people who’ve had access to at least usually terraced houses with a garden (even we had that in our council estate, huge gardens!) that unless they are rich they will just have to get used to living in flats/shoeboxes. It must affect mental health to be crammed into a small place without a garden, especially with dc.

I know people live like that all over the world, but think it willl be a struggle to get Britains to accept a real drop in their living standards, just to accommodate an increasing population which many don’t understand the need for (I saw it during Brexit with ‘well if they all weren’t here, we wouldn’t need as many teachers/doctors so it will be fine’ 🙄)

Also let’s face it, it’s not like the government is actually reinvesting the money into services to make the dense population bearable.

I worry it will cause extreme anger and resentment (and no, I don’t have any better solutions, just despairing a little).

I do have a garden, but its a communal garden. Almost all flats i see have communal gardens. I would be raising a future DC in a flat with a communal garden. And thats the case in other countries too- the flats in my home country have playgrounds and communal gardens; some even have swimming pools, tennis courts and karaoke rooms. Flats don't need to be small, in my home country, they are the same size as the victorian terraced houses-1000 square feet. I actually find british houses to be very small compared to the flats in my home country as a lot of space is lost to the staircase and awkward layouts. Also many terraced houses' have a third bedroom that is a loft conversion and so much space is lost.

they are not dropping their living standards to accommodate an increasing population. This is not a binary decision that an individual can make for themself aka if i accept immigrants, i must go live in a flat. If i don't accept immigrants, i can live in a house. so its rather that living standards decline anyway and then you have to take what you can get. And housing shortage means that they will decline so I am not sure how it helps to keep saying resolutely 'families should have houses with gardens to live in' when we both know that many of them would end up in rentals where they can be evicted in a matter of months or would end up in temporary accommodation. so what if that rental has a nice garden? Its not yours, the landlord can sell up including the garden where you have planted all your flowers.on the other hand, i am allowed to do the gardening in my communal garden; there is a man who loves gardening and he has lived in my development for 20 years so can actually enjoy the fruits of his labour (how many renters can say that they managed to stay in a rental for 20 years!) You can build lots of houses with gardens, but if they are unaffordable or bought as investments, what good does that do for most people?

Building flats (that are preferably share of freehold/residents managed) would increase housing supply. You can build more flats than detached houses with gardens so more households owning these flats would put less strain on the rental market. This means people can save more money to buy their homes (whether its flats or houses, thats up to you!) There would always be houses, there are even houses in London, 50% of Londoners still live in houses!

Even flats are and will continue to be terribly expensive. For one Westfield block for example the Developer has to give the Council over £300,000.000 for the Planning Permission. This is for a block of about 1,300 flats. Those flats will be eye wateringly expensive and likely to be for rent only as in the future must will be unable to buy and the Developers will hold on to them as income streams.

oh and that was my point- if british people don't want to live in flats or townhouses,then they would need to build on green belt land (or we would have a massive homelessness crisis in a few years time if we don't already have one). I would rather not buildon green belt land but I also don't want lots of people to be homeless or families to be living in premier inn.

If we built houses in rural areas, hopefully some of the better off renters and unhappy flat owners can move there and leave the flats/rental housing for people who really need them. We could also do multi-generational housing- that way you can have a garden but share it with your mum. Judging by all the threads where people go NC with their families, i think that is ill advised for many. Also our divorce laws are not really compatible with multi-generational living. my dad bought a house with my grandparents before marrying my mum, but this really worked because they never divorced.

But the reality of that is, as those of us living in those areas with plenty of available space keep on saying, is that the concomitant facilities in most development plans stay on the paper.

And nobody takes any real notice to the very real local issues of geography, for example. All lip service and promises of technological fixes that just don't appear or work if they are ever built.

Nobody is saying don't build. Many are saying don't build there because it floods, will flood everyone else, the road cannot take the extra traffic, you'd need to build another bridge or we will live in gridlock (they very kindly added a new lane to a roundabout, not the road, just the roundabout). All sorts of very real issues are ignored because the government set targets and LAs were being held to them.

All the time using "where will our kids all live?" as effective emotional blackmail against dissenting voices. Well, if you want your kids to live in little boxes made of ticky tacky, on flood plains, in areas with poor infrastructure, inadequate facilities, in places they wouldn't actually choose to live then fine! You support the rush to build anywhere.

Sensible people would stop and think....

I am the daughter of an immigrant and a Brit.

My Fathers family did do multi generational living, it is something rarely contemplated here.

You will struggle to convince people that flats with communal gardens are the way. My Father grew up communally and he hated it as was a quiet sort of person, I personally find the prospect totally unappealing. I am friendly with my neighbours, they come round to my house and I go to theirs but in a communal garden there is absolutely no guarantee you can just sit alone reading or just potter about in silence.

You are also based in London, I lived there and am from the SE, I’m now up North in a small market town. You need to travel round a bit more and see more of Britain. Out of interest how widespread demographically is your friendship and family group by career and income.

my DH was on free school meals as a child (he did go to a Russell Group University and is now AVP level at a bank), and my MIL still earns less than 20k, though admittedly she had help to buy her house in the 1990s and is from a very middle class background. Most of the people I know socially are Jewish a(s I am a convert) and DH is Jewish. There is a mix of people living in flats and houses- generally people buy what they can afford and that was true in the 1990s. MIL has a lot of friends from Oxford/Cambridge who are not wealthy in the least! However, they do help out their children and are able to due to the house price inflation in the two decades. I mean, a family friend of DH who is an accountant and whose wife was a lawyer also lived in an art deco flat in north london very similar to what we live in when they were our age in the 1990s. I know a real mix of people in London but most do own their properties. Almost all are university educated. My family in my home country are richer though some of my mum's sisters were quite poor (their children now support them). My dad is a property developer and my mum has a senior role in a bank- they own commercial properties and live in a huge detached house (albeit with my grandparents until they died), sister is a doctor. They did offer to buy me a house in London (in their name) and I could live there for free, but it would have been a good investment rather than an area I would have wanted to live in, so I decided to buy my property jointly with DH (his mum kindly let us live with her for 3 years while we saved up). But this is why I am worried, I know how much money rich people have to safeguard their children's future. Its not just me, i know approximately 3 people in my age group who own their homes with zero mortage. Gifted from parents. All British born and bred. Parents did not have amazing careers, just accumulated savings and house equity. And those are the people who told me! You cannot stop people from buying houses from their children (in fact with the house prices going down, banks are less likely to give big mortgages but these people would not be affected as cash buyers).

I don't think i need to convince people they are the way. No one has ever tried convincing anyone that rentals are the way, but 20% of British people live in them (and that is growing). And there are lots of nice rentals too, that cost far more than a mortgage ever would and people choose to rent them even though they could probably afford to buy in a less desirable area. They still manage to get rented out. My MIL lived in a 1 bed flat with 3 children for 6 years until she could afford a house. She did that as she needed to live in a Jewish community. Right now, middle class people can buy houses with gardens and commute esp with remote working. One day, they would be out of reach for the middle class even in cheaper regions if the housing supply is not sorted. British people are not only competing with other british people for housing, they are competing with the rest of the world. People do not need to live in the UK to invest in housing. This does not mean house prices would not go down, they may very well go down but that does not mean purchasing power increases.

i read on my laptop (kindle cloud reader online) so thats easier to do indoors where there is a charger.

In my home country where 95% people live in flats and condos, people do want to live in houses too. they can't afford to though. They do have 89% home ownership so would you rather have 89% home ownership (and people living in flats) or would you rather have 50% home ownership (and most home owners living in houses with a niche segment of the population living in owner occupied flats). I mean the latter is the model for Germany, except that Germany has much better rental protection laws. It is a perfectly legitimate option but it means that we need to phase out amateur landlords. This would mean that large swathes of the population would rent into their late 30s where they would be able to afford to buy a house. But it would also mean a lot of people have to finance rental on their pension(not sure how that would work, i think pensions in germany are a lot higher).

I prefer the model in my home country. Would be almost guaranteed to own a flat than wait for a long time to save to buy a house. A bird in the hand is better than a bird in the bush and all that. But maybe Brits prefer the German option.

I think I have an idea of where you home country is OP - Asian country? If it is, I also have links. Relatives are in a city in Portugal and living in flats is the norm there (so it’s not just in Asia).

basically the development of quality, long-lasting, affordable accommodation is NOT profitable, so should not be managed on a large scale by private developers who will be trying to make most profit for their shareholders. It is a social good - like nhs and is not a money-earner. Govt are the only people to have the capital to be able to manage it (as need to think about infrastructure like electric charge points, schools, GPs, sewage, decontamination of brownfield land, cycle paths, bus lanes). Can parcel off small sections to developers (for luxury accommodation), but the basic needs to be done by govt.

Yes Asian city state. Very small. in my home country, 85% of the population live in government built flats (that they own). If you ask most people if they would rather live in a detached house, 100% of them would say yes. But they don't live in detached houses; i do have cousins who own government flats who want to upgrade to private condos that are smaller than their government flats with high service charges for the swimming pool/tennis court/karaoke room/clubhouse because they want the 'prestige'. Fair enough, its up to them. but for the people who can't afford the private condos and houses, they will be able to own flats and have zero housing costs once mortgage is paid off. We do have property taxes but its not high if you live in a government flat. The state is able to do this as they own 90% of government land so they can build affordable housing. We don't have that luxury in the Uk as we sold off the council housing while in my home country, we expanded it to the middle classes. Even the president in my home country lived in a government flat(with no private garden), she attempted to stay on in it, but it was difficult from a security perspective as they had to check all the residents going in and out. It was her home for over 30 years and she had 5 kids!

I would rather have less if it means that everyone can have a stable and secure home. I don't like the fact that our taxes have to pay for evicted families to be housed in Premier Inns. It is a bloody ridiculous waste of money and very hard for the families involved.

@socialmedia23 - yeah - I know your home country. Will be visiting soon! Basically govt CAN build housing IF it wishes - how else would they build HS2 or cross rail - sorry landowner x says no, so we can’t build the railway/power station etc. developers in U.K. buy up big tranches of land and sit on it while land prices get higher (to increase their profits). In the plans they say they will build GP surgery, school etc - BUT they only do that after they have built and sold (v slowly) lots of houses. So in the meantime existing residents have inadequate services (increase in local population without required infrastructure) and developers take in the profits.

I’m not saying that developers are evil - they are companies seeking to make a profit for their shareholders. BUT we need to recognise that if we want affordable homes that are good quality with good supporting infrastructure and services, we need govt (local and central) to manage it - as it is not going to generate big profits. It’s like why we don’t just expect 5G masts or fibre to the premises to magically appear all over the country - it is unprofitable to roll out these services to small villages/rural areas, but important. We need to plan for it and make sure it is carried through.

If we want affordable homes
I didn't see how homes can ever be affordable whilst property constitutes an over inflated asset bubble 😕
The only way a normal wage will buy a normal home is if we have a property price crash and the wealthy will never ever allow this because so much of their wealth is tied up in property
The people with money and power make the rules and they make them to favour themselves, our country is run by the wealthy and Powerful for the benefit of the wealthy and Powerful
we are merely cogs in the machine that keeps them at the top to our detriment😕